Exhausting Weekend

When the tenants of House #1 were moving out, the man said they would clean the place up real good for me. I hadn't really checked the place out in detail since they left, until this past weekend. They didn't do ANYTHING (which, I guess, shouldn't come as a surprise). Matter of fact, they even left a lot of items behind. The utility room had a bunch of clothes and cans of different types of cleansers. The garage had some bottles of stuff, like anti-freeze and potting soil. The master bath was atrocious - they still had a bar of soap in the shower, the shower itself had soap scum and hard water stains all over the place, and toothpaste was hardening in the sink. It was just disgusting AND hard to clean. And the fireplace had a layer of ash 3" thick. I thought about getting a maid service, but the worst was mainly in the master bath and utility room. Surprisingly, the kitchen was pretty clean (except for the stove). It took me about 6 hours Saturday of scrubbing and cleaning, but the place looks a LOT better.

On Sunday, I decided to concentrate mainly outside. The yard was overgrown in the front, and the back looked like it hadn't been mowed since last fall. I went to HD and got some muclh and a few geraniums and did some minor landscaping. I also mowed and started to weed eat when my weed eater decided to break down. So, I had to go back to HD and get another one. The backyard was the worst as my mower kept bogging down in the high grass and weeds.

I had other stuff I had to do, too, like install a new door sweep on the rear door, replace a light bulb in the master bath, clean the fireplace, and so on. Finally, by 2pm Sunday, I was done. The neighborhood was having an open house starting at 2pm, so I hurried home, showered, got dressed and went back to the house for the open house. That turned out to be a bust as only one person stopped by. It was a lady and she wanted something smaller and cheaper. :-/

I laso finished the flat fee listing paperwork and submitted it over the weekend. I'll go over tonight and set up the yard sign and lock box, so it can be shown by other agents. I also need to stop by the city offices (again) and start water service at the house. When I cleaned over the weekend, I just took a couple 5G buckets of water from our house over. It wasn't easy, but I got it all done.

I kept a list of supplies I bought and called some places for prices, so I have a good idea how much to charge the old tenants.

Edit: Just received an email saying House #1 is listed with a link to the listing, and it looks great! It will have to wait until tonight for it to recycle in the gateway, and will take another 2-4 days before hitting Realtor.com, but it should be in agents' computers today.